


Nightmares

by j3ssential



Series: Set Ablaze [8]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Animals, Battle, Blood and Gore, Death, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons References, Fights, Fire, Fire Powers, Graphic Description, Horseback Riding, Horses, Murder, Origin Story, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Original Fiction, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21570814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j3ssential/pseuds/j3ssential
Summary: Did you know nightmares are carnivores?
Series: Set Ablaze [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554559
Kudos: 1
Collections: Wildfire





	Nightmares

Wildfire sat astride the nightmare with easy grace, her eyes on the valley below as the great beast stomped restlessly with its massive hooves. It didn’t like being in the material plane any more than she did, but there was so much more variety in hunting, especially their favored target, humans. That was the subject of the small battle tableau laid out before them, gouts of flame and crackling lightning leaping between small figures in shining plate hacking at each other with gleaming swords. Wildfire envied them their vicious freedom. In the nightmare, they only awoke a hunger.  
Smiling wickedly, she caressed the nightmare’s mane of flame. “What do you think, Makur? Should we join them?” Makur reared in answer, a great challenging bellow echoing from him before he charged down the hill at the combatants. Wildfire took her whip from her side, uncoiling it and lighting it in one vicious movement, punctuated by a crack and her whooping war cry. So well matched was she to the horse it was difficult to see where ebony fur ended and obsidian skin began, their manes trailing behind them like furious comets. A shared joy and excitement crested in them as they swept into the fray, the combatants scattering in confusion and terror, ducking behind shields, clutching burning halved staves and cauterized stumps.  
Wildfire and Makur circled, screaming their joy into the bloody fray, sharp ebony hooves staving in skulls, the fiery coil of the whip wrapping around throats mid scream. It was not a long engagement, and it could not have been called a battle, so one sided it was. At the end, horse and rider stood in the middle of the carnage, chests heaving, their faces alight in furious joy, quickly dimming.  
“Never seems to last very long, does it my friend?” Makur snorted in dismayed agreement, head bending to nudge a body over as she slid off him. “Here, let me unwrap it for you at least. I don’t want you eating coins on accident again.” She bent with a dagger and flicked the tunic of the body open, exposing the chest, ignoring Makur’s derisive eyeroll as he bent his head to the torso and tore loose a large chunk with a wet tearing sound. She filtered through the various pockets and items of the corpses, examining things, tossing anything that didn’t interest her into a pile on the ground.  
“The Sultan will want you back soon, I’m afraid.” She flicked a handful of coins into the trash pile when Makur gave an irritated toss of his head. “Look, tell him, not me. You’re the one who had to go and sire his best racing foal. He expects you to stud for him.” She shot him a wry look as a broken stave joined the pile, pocketing a shiny amulet.  
“Don’t pretend to be mad about that.” She put a hand to her hand in a melodramatic parody of a faint. “What I would do for such a job.”  
Makur snorted in response, and she straightened, her smile falling. “Although yes, it would be different for me.” She visibly shuddered, chucking a steel dagger perhaps harder than necessary into the trash pile. “At least you don’t have to carry the blasted things. Can you imagine? All squirming around inside of you, and you can’t even do anything or you’d kill it, and for like EVER!”  
Her face scrunched up in revulsion, she tugged boots off the last man, tossing them into the trash pile when they didn’t fit. “Count your blessings my man. You have it easy.” Her work done, she sat, her back propped up against two bodies toppled on top of each other while she watched Makur go from body to body, selecting the choicest pieces for his fill.  
Finally, he turned to her, bowing his head in the direction of the hill they had come from. She sighed. “Yeah. Might as well. I doubt we’re gonna come up on anything this fun again.” She stood, stretching, before using the bodies to vault herself onto Makur’s back once more.  
“Lead us home, Makur.”


End file.
